


The House of Whisperers and beyond: Nagare

by imahira



Category: Ushio to Tora | Ushio and Tora
Genre: Canon - Manga, Essays, Gen, Meta, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-14
Updated: 2015-12-14
Packaged: 2020-05-07 09:54:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19206997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imahira/pseuds/imahira
Summary: Compilation of a couple of posts about the manga version of Nagare's fight in the House of Whisperers, plus the conclusion of his arc. (Translations/typesetting by me)





	The House of Whisperers and beyond: Nagare

([1](https://40.media.tumblr.com/fd58d2ec529e1c68b37199de0e4b81b4/tumblr_nzc08xzK9l1qevv11o1_1280.png) [2](https://40.media.tumblr.com/ada791de35b9b1774170732db0912b56/tumblr_nzc08xzK9l1qevv11o2_1280.png) [3](https://41.media.tumblr.com/d81454c7cb11db9ba2a749b99365f268/tumblr_nzc08xzK9l1qevv11o6_1280.png) [4](https://41.media.tumblr.com/35c46c1df23080cde450c7a566f43f06/tumblr_nzc08xzK9l1qevv11o7_1280.png) [5](https://40.media.tumblr.com/631814ab8193bc40a7ea3fd7676f5afe/tumblr_nzc08xzK9l1qevv11o5_1280.png) [6](https://40.media.tumblr.com/094b3db99c9b7bf1ae48c40f0eede2b2/tumblr_nzc08xzK9l1qevv11o4_1280.png) [7](https://41.media.tumblr.com/9efa74b20e520d2e03f033a7c1cf94fb/tumblr_nzc08xzK9l1qevv11o3_1280.png) [8](https://41.media.tumblr.com/21783966482241c45e4449a44286981d/tumblr_nzc08xzK9l1qevv11o8_1280.png))

And here is Nagare and Tora’s fight, as promised. Minus the parts that don’t matter, so the flow of the battle is not going to make any sense here. The translation starts up from the point where their conversation ends in the anime; Nagare’s line ホントーにオレは，おめーにゃキョーミあるよなぁ。is changed there into ホントーにおめーはおもしれえなぁ 。 This is roughly a change from “You’re really interesting to me.” to “You’re really fun.”

**edit: ACTUALLY, my mistake; some of the conversation does appear in the anime, though a few lines are changed slightly. This translation starts where the two versions begin to  _differ._

([Longer meta here](http://funnuraba.tumblr.com/post/135166144362))

***notes:  
– Weirdly enough, Hakumen (白面) and  _omoshiroi_  (面白; fun, interesting, amusing) are written with the same kanji, but reversed.  
– “I’ve always been able [etc.]”: he uses the same wording that [Hinowa does when she says she threw her life away long ago](http://funnuraba.tumblr.com/post/134687250387): “ _mukashi kara_ ”, "since long ago". (Hinowa actually uses the progressive tense to say that she’s  _kept_  throwing her life away on a continual basis, but that sounds extremely awkward in English.)

* * *

Annnd [here we have Nagare.](http://funnuraba.tumblr.com/post/135166140357)

Nagare, Nagare, Nagare.

So, in the end, he never does run away, does he? Basically his deal is that he hates himself so much that he can’t stand for anybody to love him.

Fujita mentioned in a Q&A on Twitter that Nagare’s betrayal wasn’t planned from the beginning, and he’s not sure he pulled it off right–but that actually surprised me a lot, because I’d always felt like it was foreshadowed kind of horribly and painfully from the very beginning: he says outright that he doesn’t care about the Beast Spear… and why would he, right? He didn’t have to work all that hard to become a candidate.

Or so he claims–it’s not really clear how hard Nagare actually works. He went through at least some of the same difficult training as Moritsuna, and the way he freaks out when Tora calls him a  _tensai_  (a genius, a prodigy, someone for whom things come easily) indicates that there might be something more going on there. I still can’t quite puzzle that part out.

We know from one very brief flashback panel later on that he went through a phase where he locked himself in his room and refused to come out, going full hikikomori, basically, out of depression. From the gakuran uniform he’s wearing in the previous panels, we know this was some time after he entered middle school, but it’s not clear how long this phase lasted. He mentions a mother, but the only interaction we see between them is the implication that she took care of the trash piled outside his door–on which he left a sign reading, “Die!”

So, most likely his family situation never improved much after that point. We don’t know when exactly he found out about the Kouhamei sect, but by the time canon takes place he seems to have relocated to live in their vicinity, traveling around by motorcycle when necessary. The Moritsunas are orphans who were located by the sect early in life, Hinowa’s family was previously involved with the sect, and Kirio is… Kirio. But Nagare has apparently just tossed his old life away at some point in his mid-teens, and refocused everything around fighting monsters. He has nothing else, and doesn’t seem to want anything else.

Then the Beast Spear gets pulled out, and he meets Ushio and Tora. And I hesitate to say that basically he falls in love with Tora, but… there’s almost no other way to put it. Tora is interesting, Tora is fun, Tora is special. And Ushio is interesting, and Ushio is fun, and Ushio trusts him–because he’s so good at pretending to be a nice guy, or so he claims.

But Hakumen no Mono is incredibly strong, right? Why didn't Nagare want to fight it instead? Wouldn’t that be way more fun, if fighting monsters is the only thing he can enjoy? Well, yeah, actually, that would have worked out great. If only Hakumen hadn’t noticed that he secretly thinks he’s a terrible person! That he wants to fight Tora, specifically, because Tora is the most interesting monster to him! Hakumen is just  _strong_. He has no personal interest in it. And if he wants to fight Tora, for real, more than he wants to fight Hakumen no Mono… well, why  _not_  join up with Hakumen?

And as soon as he’s tempted by that suggestion, he decides, basically, that that means he  _is_  a terrible person, that he  _has to be_  one, has to make Ushio hate him–because the alternative is too painful. The alternative being Ushio believing in him, and being wrong about him.

And… well, he really, really does want to fight Tora. Ushio won’t fight him for real, but he can force Tora to do it. So, he commits himself to Hakumen’s plan. And I think deep down, at a certain point, he wants Tora to kill him. He claims that he wants Ushio to hate him, but what does he do? He lets him  _leave_  instead of forcing him to watch the fight with Tora. He can’t bear to actually have Ushio look at him anymore, because he doesn’t deserve it.

He does his best to fool himself, but Tora sees through him, and gets him really angry despite his attempts at playing this whole thing cool. So he forces Tora to kill him. But Tora does him the favor of honoring his last request, playing along with his lie about turning traitor just for the fun of it. And that lie deals one last blow, protecting Nagare’s honor at the cost of Tora’s relationship with Ushio. That’s where the battle with Hakumen starts to go south, and it’s some time yet before the damage is healed and Tora tells Ushio the truth–Nagare joined with Hakumen not because he was too above it all to ever really care about anything, but because of his own weakness.

Before Nagare dies, he does say that all the nice, friendly things he said were genuine. His spirit says later that he “came back to himself”–so this wasn’t his real self, either. It was the darkness inside of him that couldn’t bear to look at the light. And Tora plays along with his lie because he’s the one who’s spent thousands of years pretending to be heartless and evil, the one whose resentment in his human life fed Hakumen no Mono in the first place, and he knows better than anyone else what it feels like to be trapped between the sun and the darkness.


End file.
